As the non-financial mainstream media begin focusing on Sunday’s Swiss gold referendum, USA Today reports a Bank of America prediction that “the price of gold could jump to more than $1,350 an ounce — an increase of 18%,” if the “yes” vote prevails. And a Guardian article, headlined “Fears that ‘dangerous’ Switzerland referendum could spark gold rush,” refers to a quote by the chairman of the Swiss National Bank, who said during a ‘sermon’ he delivered at a Swiss church, “The initiative is dangerous because it would weaken the SNB.”

But the lion’s share of the Guardian‘s quotes come from precious metals analyst and blogger Koos Jansen, who calls the Swiss initiative “merely part of a increasing global scramble towards gold and away from the endless printing of money,” adding that “While those behind the Swiss initiative have often been portrayed as crazy, they’re merely acting out of fear that their central bank is losing control of its monetary policy, and of the Swiss franc being sucked into this currency war and losing its value.”

Silver and gold ended off 1.1% and 2.2% respectively on Monday, giving back a portion of Friday’s gains as the U.S. dollar rebounded. “From a technical perspective,” according to USA Gold’s daily market report, “Friday’s key-reversal on the daily chart and the hook-reversal on the weekly chart favor further short-term positive price action” in gold.“However, persistent firmness in the dollar and buoyant stocks continue to prompt outflows from ETPs indexed to gold. Another eight tonnes came out of the paper market last week.” But, citing numerous examples that demand for physical gold and silver “remains robust,” it notes that “We’ve seen this time and time again: Lower prices spurred by selling in the paper market are viewed as a buying opportunity by those who prefer to hold real physical metal.”

It’s hard to extoll the virtues of silver in the face of a price decline. We anticipate gains for our clients and are disappointed in the recent results. A lot of people rely on our advice and we don’t want to let them down. We all do better when our clients experience gains.

That said, are we ever going to get to the promised land? Right now the byword is patience. A clear understanding of what’s causing the recent decline will be helpful in plotting the future. As you know, we rely on silver analyst Theodore Butler to chart our course and fashion our advice. I happen to know that all his personal investments are in silver so he is definitely eating his own cooking. Because of his all-out bullishness on silver we have to stress that he operates with a care and cautiousness befitting of a mature and shrewd analyst. He understands the futures market like few others. Despite his profound and pioneering analysis of silver, surprisingly few gold and silver editors have embraced his breakthrough opinions. Either because of ego or stubbornness other precious metals analysts are invariably barking up the wrong tree. Mr. Butler has for years been the sole purveyor of the truth about silver….Read More »

Spot gold and silver ended up 0.5% and 1.4% respectively on Wednesday, with the gains attributed to a September slow down in U.S. manufacturing growth, a flat U.S. dollar and a stock sell-off that was led by shares in airlines and travel booking companies, based on fears about ebola.

“One catalyst for gold could be a flight to quality bid if equities continue to deteriorate,” said a trader quoted by MarketWatch, who added that “From a timing perspective, the best opportunity would likely come when the dollar finally pauses to consolidate its current gains. Even the temporary dissipation of such a headwind would likely lead to a sharp rally.”

See also:

Hard Assets Investor/SilverSeek: Gold bulls hanging on in battle vs. surging U.S. dollar; Dollar is the last stop before gold & silver spike

Seeking Alpha: Investors fleeing euro & yen, could U.S. dollar be next currency to crumble?

Coin News/SRSrocco Report: Gold rises in October start; U.S. Mint coin sales explode; The U.S. Mint sells over 750,000 Silver Eagles in one day

As portfolio manager John Hussman warns of “an equity bubble, and a highly advanced one,” another veteran investor and frequent crash-predictor says the current stock market environment is ‘like being in the Twilight Zone,” and argues that “When there is a correction, it will be very severe.” Enter Marc Faber, who, after predicting that a 20 to 30% correction will begin within a few months, was taken to task by a CNBC host for continually predicting corrections that have yet to happen. “I started to work in 1970,” said Faber, “and over that career, somehow, somewhere, I must have made some right calls; otherwise I wouldn’t be in business.” At that point, reports Zero Hedge, “What CNBC then edited out of the transcript was Faber pointing out his 22% annualized return in his publicly-viewable funds since then and asking, “I wonder what the CNBC portfolio would look like since 1999?”

Although basically flat on Friday, both gold and silver logged their sixth straight week of gains, reports Reuters, “as many remained concerned about violence in the Middle East.” That sentiment is echoed by a research consultant who Reuters quotes as saying that “Investors have discovered gold again as an asset class that could provide some protection, after last year they clearly preferred the stocks market and risky assets.”

And as silver ends the week with its best run in three years, it’s also up more than 10% since the start of the year, when “most analysts were calling for further price falls,” reports GoldCore, reminding that “Very few market participants and investors know about silver’s outperformance as silver gets little or no media attention. There is a huge focus given to the record highs in U.S. and some other stock markets. Therefore, silver remains the preserve of relatively few contrarian investors and store of wealth buyers.”

Gold and silver ended up a fraction of a percent on Wednesday, and added to gains after the Fed announced that while it will continue tapering, and hinted at a slightly accelerated pace for raising interest rates, it also dialed back economic expectations, which was seen as a positive for buillion. Its forecast for GDP growth this year dropped from 2.8% to 3% in March, to 2.1% to 2.3% now. The above chart from Alhambra Investment Partners, shows how things have fallen off since the FOMC predicted an annual growth rate pushing 4% last September.

With the Fed cooling on the economy, things heated up on CNBC, where Marc Faber called out the financial mainstream for its negative attitude towards gold. He tells the anchor that investors are shunning gold “because the media doesn’t like gold, nobody at CNBC owns gold. Nobody at Bloomberg owns gold. Gold is being constantly talked down by the media, and Fed officials, and economists, who also don’t own any gold. They’re all stocked up in equities ….When people talk about people who are optimistic about gold, they call them ‘gold bugs.’ A bug is an insect. I don’t call equity bulls ‘cockroaches.’ Do you understand? There is already a negative connotation with the expression of ‘gold bug.'”

The Tocqueville Gold Fund’s John Hathaway holds out hope that the legal proceedings “will finally demystify the inner workings of the London gold market. Ukraine is obviously the headline grabber right now and for good reason, but, to me, one of the key longer term catalysts for gold is to shed daylight on the connection between the physical market and the synthetic market for gold.” The five banks being sued are Barclays, SocGen, ScotiaBank, HSBC and Deutsche Bank, which last week announced that it was giving up its gold and silver fix seats without finding a buyer.

“The mainstream media, for whatever reason, continues to believe that it can scare potential gold owners away with its consistently negative coverage,” writes USA Gold’s Michael Kosares. “but as a recent Gallup Poll suggests, such tactics no longer work all that well. That poll ranks gold the second best option among long-term investments behind real estate and tied with stocks. What makes gold’s poll performance interesting is that it reflects public opinion on gold after a more than two year decline that began in 2011 and at a time when real estate and stocks have enjoyed strong performances…. Polls notoriously reflect the ebb and flow of public opinion and for gold to still rank second after a two year drought indicates a swing in the public’s long-term attitude toward gold.”

Gold and silver futures added a fraction of a percent on Wednesday, with gold benefiting from “some mild short covering and bargain hunting,” according to one analyst cited by Coin News, which also reports “another day of wide bullion gains,” based on numbers from the U.S. Mint, “adding to already strong figures with sales so far this week at 13,500 ounces in gold coins and 1,122,000 ounces in silver coins. Those top last week sales of 9,000 ounces in gold coins and 1,050,500 ounces in silver coins.”